Saturday, May 31, 2014

I told Birdie I was going to look into the 2-hour horse/mule rides into Bryce Canyon. Since I chose the 2-hour ride instead of the 1/2 day ride, it wasn't too hard to convince her to try it too.

This is Johnny the Mule. He was my mount for the trip, and he was a good ole boy.

This was pretty much my view of Johnny throughout the ride.

Although sometimes I got this profile view.

Mounting was not graceful. I'm so glad "someone" didn't take my picture. This is the kinder of the two I took of Birdie.

Off we go. I rode behind the guide. The butt shots of me were taken by Birdie who was behind me.

Birdie on her mule, Kimber. There were 5 others behind her.

Starting down the trail.Our wrangler's name is Dillan.

I got pretty good at taking pictures blind over my shoulder.

And the views opened up before us as we descended 1000 feet into the canyon.

We were told to stay close together..about four feet apart, but this gal behind Birdie kept lagging behind...so the others had to too....no passing allowed.

Waiting for them to catch up.

Finally Dillan stopped and got off to go show her how to slap the horse's rump with the rope to get him to move faster.

Onward

The wrangler called this window, Bryce's Naked Lady.

And this a sinking ship.

The crooked trees are Bristlecone Pines....very old trees.

The three formations on the right resemble sea lions.

The middle one with his mouth open.

And Dillan says the three on the left are bottles of beer or wine, take your pick.

There are people on a hiking trail over there.

Can you see them?

Birdie was carrying a hydration pack on her back...

Not sure what she put in it though.

Once in awhile she got a face shot of me.

Mostly butt shots though.

The dead trees in this area are victims of lightning strikes. They get a lot of lightning in the summer months here.

I could hear Birdie just a' talkin' to her horse. "Head up, ...catch up and smell Johnny's butt..."

We stopped here so Dillan could tell us about how ButchCassidy, the outlaw, used to rustle cattle through this part of the canyon. He knew all the places to hide and stashed caches of supplies so he could escape pursuers.

So that was fun to imagine as we passed though.

Starting up some switchbacks.

Others were lagging behind again.

Here come the others.

Back to the top.

One more look at the view.

These next two are photos of the pictures they took of us on the trail.

That was a lot of fun, and we're both still walking....maybe not like we normally do, but walking.